The Pentagon’s drive to bring in more Open Architecture (OA) systems should not be limited to one service, the Office of Naval Research’s head for
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) said recently.
“It doesn’t do any good to have a Navy-unique solution,” Bobby Junker told a naval open architecture (OA) conference earlier this month sponsored by the Surface Navy Association. “This has got to be joint.”
The Navy has managed to push ahead in the drive to develop and deploy OA systems. OA involves using existing, commercial technology to produce modular, interoperable systems with open design practices that can be easily upgraded and maintained and save the Navy money.
The Navy is nudging forward with a cornerstone of its OA plan called the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES), which it plans to install on the surface fleet. CANES is designed to integrate multiple legacy networks responsible for command, control, computers, and intelligence (C4I) into a single, streamlined system.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] are in the hunt for the contract for the first CANES production run. The winner could be announced by the end of this year or early 2012.